As the Chinese saying goes,”大難不死,必有後福” (lady luck will shine on those who escaped a disaster). The driver of the Toyota Land Cruiser in the above video should heed to a lottery outlet after his car was narrowly missed by lightning.

The above footage was captured by a dashboard-mounted camera on a Russian road. According to reports, the Japanese SUV belongs to the mayor of the Russian town of Zheleznogorsk , Vadim Medvedev. At the time of the incident, Mr Vadim was not on board of the car and the car was driven by his chauffeur.

According to local news, the lightning did not strike the Toyota SUV directly but the car’s electrical system broke down shortly after the massive electrostatic discharge from the atmosphere. The vehicle had to be towed away after that. Fortunately, no one was injured in the event.

A direct lightning strike to a car will usually flow through the frame of the vehicle and through the tires to reach the ground. Flat tires and damage to electronics may occur. However, it is not uncommon for a strike to ignite fuel and result in a fire or explosion. For reader’s information, a single stroke of lightning can reach a temperature of 30,500oC, or five times hotter than the Sun's surface.

I have been a car fanatic since 1989, when my father was changing our family car then to a Toyota Corolla 1.6 GL fitted with a Twin Cam 16 valve engine that was carburetor-fed, a big deal back in those days. The automobile technology and industry fascinates me and I hope to broadcast these interesting developments to everyone out there through this blog.